Chase the Sky (Into the Ocean)
by Arrowsbane
Summary: Sumigakure Halloween Event 2017: Prompt #3. Umino Iruka is born with salt in his veins and the sound of the ocean in his heart. The current drags him down, it does not let him go. Because what belongs to the sea, must return to the sea. The breathing underwater is new though.


**Chase the Sky (Into the Ocean)**

 **Sumigakure Halloween Event 2017: Prompt 3**

 **Arrowsbane**

* * *

Umino Iruka is born with salt in his veins and the sound of the ocean in his heart.

He grows up in a landlocked country, in a dry forested village where the only water to be found is in rivers and lakes. There is no salty tang on the evening air, there is no push and pull of the tide. The water is still and lifeless.

He fights for a village that was cousin to his homeland and wields flame and earth as his teachers insist; but still his heritage pulls through, and he holds his head high when the chakra paper his Jonin-sensei hands him turns into a sodden pulp. He may live amongst fire and leaves, but he is of sea and sky and the endless reach of the horizon. There is no shame in this.

He makes genin, and he thinks his parents would have been proud. So he pushes harder. The memory of his mother's smile and his father's' laughter at his back. He makes chunin, and winds up teaching academy students. He doesn't care what Mizuki says (and there's jealousy in his old friend's voice), or the teasing he gets from Izumo and Kotetsu – as far as he cares, corralling a herd of baby ninja is a serious job, and it's one he's proud to do.

Hell, he can catch _Naruto_. Considering how the boy can outwit ANBU on his good days, that's certainly something to brag about over drinks down at the bar on a Friday night. Okay, so it might have something to do with how he stole one of the boys' shirts once and regularly bribes his summons with anchovies, but nobody needs to know that.

* * *

Water twists and bends to his will, always the push and pull. The muscles in his legs snap taut, his arms raising up so he's stood in a basic stance. It's his last resort, it's what most people think happens when you combine the Nara bloodline with the insanely strong water-nature.

They're wrong. It's got nothing to do with the Nara, and everything to do with why the Umino clan was to Uzushio, as the Uchiha are to Konoha.

* * *

The current drags him down, down, down. Away from the enemy, away from death. Away from fire and lightning, away from the cold steel and the bite of a katana. He tastes salt in his mouth and kicks furiously at the riptide. It does not let him go.

Because what belongs to the sea, must return to the sea.

The breathing underwater is new though.

* * *

 **One week previously…**

Iruka rolls out of bed just as the sun peeks over the horizon. He's always been a ridiculously early riser, something that his summons are most certainly not. There's a stubborn whine coming from inside the cover of a stolen pillow, and Iruka smirks.

"Sango." He says, eyeing the oddly-shaped piece of bedding, "Up."

"Go 'way," comes a petulant female voice. Iruka rolls his eyes, picking up a fresh change of clothes and heading into the bathroom to clean his teeth, ignoring the chirping whines that echo from the bedroom.

The old showerhead shudders as he turns the water on, and then hot water sprays from the nozzle, drenching him. After a few minutes, his trained hearing detects a scuffle coming from outside of the room, and then a thud of something distinctly not wood hitting the floor. There's the familiar clicking of claws on tile, and a streak of brown as Sango happily dives into the shower, twisting herself around his ankles. It's only habit that keeps him from tripping over her.

"I thought you were still sleeping?" He teases the she-otter, and receives a grumble in reply as she pushes against his ankle.

"Can we have tuna for breakfast?" Sango asks, ignoring his jab over her laziness.

"You had tuna for dinner," He grumbles, rinsing the last of the scent-less conditioner from his hair, and reaching blindly for the towel before turning off the shower. Sango grumbles again over the loss of the water.

"So?"

"So not everybody lives on fish." Iruka reminds her, thinking about his lesson plans for the day.

"Heathens," is her simplistic reply. In Sango's mind, anybody who dislikes seafood is an enemy and not to be trusted. It's rather common for her clan. Iruka ignores her, squeezing the water from his hair with the towel.

"So can we?" The only response she gets is a towel dropped on her head.

He winds up cooking omelet and grilled salmon. The kettle whistles sharply, and he pours a cupful of hot water, mixing in the matcha powder to make green tea. Paper rustles as Sango emerges from where she was rooting around in the empty salmon container – because even though he's given her an otter-sized portion, she still wants to be thorough. She's got a silver scale stuck to her nose and he's not going to be the one to tell her.

Grade books, check. Lesson plans, check. Bento? Headband in place? Check and check. Insane otter companion? Wait…

"Sango, what are you doing in my bag?" The sow smiles cheerfully up at him.

"What does it look like?" She says, "I'm coming with you."

Iruka sighs heavily, and gives her a look. No, just no.

"This isn't a negotiation," She declares imperiously, and for a second Iruka can see her mother's temperament shining through. It really isn't worth it. There's a reason otter's have a similar reputation to the kitsune.

He sighs, and hauls the bag onto his shoulder – otter and all – before locking the window behind him, and leaping onto the roof of the neighboring building. Tiny otter squeals of delight come from the satchel, and he can't help but smile at Sango's childishness.

He lands on the roof of the academy, sliding down the side of the building using very precise chakra control and unlocks the classroom window from the outside.

Doors are for civilians.

And boring people.

"Do not," Iruka tells her firmly, as he sets the bag down on the floor, "terrorize my students."

"Not even a little bit?" And goddamn, she's not a dog, how is she pulling off the puppy-dog face. He sighs (a common occurrence for him), and rubs at his face.

"Nothing I can be blamed for," he concedes, checking the desk and surrounding area for traps, just in case a certain orange-loving pre-teen had visited in the night. Satisfied that everything is safe, or at the very least not going to leave him covered in itching powder, Iruka opens the classroom door for the day and settles into his morning routine.

While Sango entertains herself by inspecting his students as they walk through the door – The responses varying between: "I didn't know you had summons Iruka-sensei?" and "Holy crap. A talking otter!" That kid was practically asking to be bitten, - he unpacks his bag for the day, shuffling through the papers to find the homework he'll be handing back. Absently, he opens a drawer to put his bento away, and then reconsiders. Iruka unscrews the cap of his ink, and dips the tip of his brush in it, painting a careful preservation seal across the top of the bento. Naruto can be vicious when he's bored, and Iruka never wants to end up with a mouthful of mealworms ever again.

It'd taken him a while, but eventually he'd managed to recreate the seal his mother used to ink onto the family bentos to keep the food fresh and pristine.

(Even now, painting the circle of kanji reminds him of his mother's smile, and the way his father used to ruffle his hair on the way out the door in the morning.

And okay, so the first dozen tries at recreating the seal on his lunchbox had failed; including one spectacular explosion that had led to there being fragments of sushi all over the kitchen. He'd had to summon an entire romp of Otters to sniff out the tiny pieces, so his apartment wouldn't end up stinking of rotten fish. The downside was that the little pests had declared rice and nori to be acceptable, and frequently demand sushi whenever he called on them.

If they weren't family…

Well, that's the whole reason he wound up contracting them anyway, isn't it?)

* * *

 _After his parents died, Iruka had almost drowned in the loneliness that came from living in a house empty of everything but memories. The room his parents had slept in was untouched, the door still flung open from where his mother had quickly rushed out to grab her battlegear._

 _A year later, and the only reason he'd even gone in there was because he'd torn a shirt, and needed the repair kit that lived in the nightstand on the right side of the bed. He hadn't meant to, but his fingers had brushed over the slim scroll that sat next to the kit – trimmed with a delicate blue border of waves, in which otters happily frolicked. The same scroll that Ikkaku had fashioned to teach him how to summon only days before the Kyuubi had ruined everything. Tears well up, and he pulls the scroll from the drawer and cradles it to his chest._

 _Iruka's tiny trembling hands break the wax seal and unwind the vellum, to reveal the summoning kanji. Even though it's marked for Tadahiro, his father's companion, Iruka knows that with his small reserves he'll probably end up with one of the male otter's pups._

 _It'd be worth it though. For even a tiny piece of what used to be._

 _He lays the scroll flat on the floor, bites his thumb and channels a spike of chakra into the seal. Smoke poofs into being, clearing to reveal a familiar face. Dark eyes blink up at him from a furry face, and paper rustles as a tail thumps in greeting._

 _"Hey Sango," Iruka says, smiling sadly, recognizing the otter as his childhood playmate. The adolescent sow shuffles forwards, and clambers into his lap, pressing her snout into the crook of his neck._

 _"Iru-chan." Iruka tastes salt on his lips, and he realizes he's crying._

 _But for the first time in a year, they're happy tears._

* * *

The call for the mission comes as he's finishing up for the week at the Academy, and so Iruka heads on home to swap out his teaching bag with his go-bag. Sango isn't too happy about being dismissed to the summoning realm, but she knows the drill as well as him.

Within an hour, he's got his assignment and is sprinting out of the village gates.

He doesn't know it yet, but he's heading straight into a trap.

* * *

C-ranks. Why is it always C-ranks? Iruka wonders, dodging the blow of a katana.

Turns out, there's more than a few ex-kiri nin with a grudge to bear, and Iruka's the poor sap who got the wrong end of the stick.

He dodges the explosive tags, and the shuriken, but he doesn't dodge the blow to the gut and skids back ever-closer to the cliff-edge. There's a shout from his right, and then all Iruka knows is bright light and too-much-sound, and he's falling, falling, falling.

Iruka hits the water in a painful crash, and it knocks the breath from his lungs. Somewhere above, he imagines he hears a crow of victory before the laws of physics take over and he sinks beneath the waves.

The current drags him down, down, down. Away from the enemy, away from death. Away from fire and lightning, away from the cold steel and the bite of a katana. He tastes salt in his mouth and kicks furiously at the riptide. It does not let him go.

 _Because what belongs to the sea, **must return to the sea.**_

The breathing underwater is new though.

* * *

Iruka wakes up to the strange sensation of being weightless, his eyes open to see the dazzling effect that sunlight creates when it passes through water. The reef could never have been so beautiful until now.

 _The reef._

He flails and panics, desperately holding his breath and _why is he not drowning_ before reality sinks in and Iruka accepts that strange is relative in the world of very obvious ninja. The Uchiha breathe fire with an ease that makes the stories of them being descended from a dragon seem possible, the Shodaime _talked to trees_ , the Niidaime and Yondaime could both _teleport._

There's whispers that magic was known, not just _known,_ but _used_ and channeled into great feats of ingenuity in Uzushiogakure before it was destroyed - that magic augmented the Uzumaki seals beyond anything an ordinary human could do. In retrospect, breathing underwater, while extremely handy, is not such a big thing.

A shoal of tiny orange and white fish swim across his field of vision, and Iruka blinks, watching the reef come to life around him. It's like a kaleidoscope of color as fish of all kinds surf the currents.

A nudge at his forearm has him looking down to see a pufferfish cozying up to his side. Tentatively, Iruka opens his fist and lifts his palm to the fish, rubbing his fingers across the soft spines. The small spiny fish releases a string of bubbles, and he gets the distinct feeling that it is happy.

* * *

Iruka returns home to Konoha, with a new skillset under his belt, and spends his evenings with a raft of Otters in the hotsprings. Chitters and squeals of delight about, as his non-human family realize that now he can play even _more_ game with them.

Iruka finds himself taking more missions to water country than anywhere else, the knowledge that he is _safe_ below the Ocean's surface kept a sure secret. It's his secret. His, and only his.

* * *

It's another three months or so before the reason clicks into place inside his head. Iruka wants nothing more than to smack his head repeatedly against the old wooden desk. Because of _course,_ that's it. What's in a name? Apparently everything, _goddammit_.

Umino.

 _Of the Sea._

The first Umino was bound to the Ocean by blood and by magic.

That's why the water-affinity is so strong, that's why the sea has been calling to him since before he could remember. It's why he can breathe under water, why he learnt to swim before he could walk – and Iruka vaguely remembers his father sitting in an overlarge bathtub with him, a hand under his infant belly while his mother watched curiously.

It makes sense.

It feels _right._

Konoha is his home, is the fire in his soul and the strength in his bones; but the Ocean is the salt in his veins and its current is the beat of his heart.

Two worlds. Both are his.

There's old magic in nature, and there's magic in the clans. Name aside, who would ever expect a ninja from _fire_ country to be so strongly tied to the sea?

 _'Yeah'_ , Iruka thinks, stroking a hand over Sango's fur that night, ' _I can work with that.'_

* * *

 **Notes:** AU. Took the concept of non-HP Witch/Wizards and ran with the idea of magic being innate and fueled by nature/mixing humans with myths.

Possibly TBC... who knows.


End file.
